Do Bumblebees Make Honey?

Everyone knows honey bees make honey. But what about bumblebees?

Do bumblebees make honey?

In one sense, it could be said that bumblebees have
their own version of honey – but it is not really honey exactly. What
they have is nectar stores for food, which are needed for a short
period of time, and in comparison with honey bees, bumblebees store only
a tiny
amount.

This, along with other reasons,
means that humans do not harvest bumblebee nectar stores for human consumption (at least, not in the West) –
although there are indeed animals that will happily eat a bumblebee nest,
complete with nectar stores and larvae.

Before we go any further, let us consider, what honey
actually is, and what it means to the bees themselves.

Honey From Honey Bees

In short, honey is an edible sweet substance made by bees from nectar gathered from flowers.

Honey made by honey bees, and which is harvested by
humans, is actually stored and capped nectar that has been transformed into honey.

The
honey bees gather nectar and store it in wax cells. When the bees regurgitate the nectar for
storing into the wax cells, it is mixed with a bee enzyme, and later it is fanned by the bees so that it
becomes more concentrated (this is an oversimplification,
but you can read more detail on my page what is honey?). The honey will
contain traces of pollen too.

Once the
honey is ready, it is ‘capped’ by the bees, which
means they cover the wax cell with a layer of wax. This capped honey in the wax combs is
actually winter stores for the honey bees to feed on during the colder months and
poor weather, when they are unable to go out and forage for food, and when
there are fewer flowers in the environment providing food for bees.

However, it is also when the honey has been capped that beekeepers harvest honey, because they now know the honey is ready.

The Bumblebee Version Of Honey Stores: Nectar In Nectar Pots

When a queen bumblebee emerges from hibernation, she feeds,
finds a suitable location for a nest, and begins to establish her colony. In so doing, she makes a nectar pot from wax
which she secretes from the underside of her abdomen. She then gathers nectar from flowers, and she
transfers this nectar to the nectar pots. The bumblebee queen will feed on the nectar
herself from the nectar pots, as she incubates her eggs.

In addition, as
the queen rears her young, the new bumblebees will emerge and will also feed on nectar
from the nectar pots too. It could be said
that in one sense, this is the bumblebee version of honey, but as stated, it is
not the same as that produced by honey bees - there is no extended transformation period, and the nectar is gathered and stored in the wax pots in much smaller
quantities.

Below is a picture showing the inside of a bumblebee nest with a young colony.

Why Don’t Bumblebees Make Honey In The SameWay As Honey Bees?

Bumblebees do not need to store food over the winter
period – i.e. they have no need for ‘winter stores’.
This is because bumblebee colonies do not have the same extended colony
life cycle that honey bees have. Honey
bee colonies should ideally thrive through the winter, and because of this,
they need winter stores – the honey.

Where bumblebees are concerned, only the new queens will survive and
hibernate through the winter, whilst the rest of the colony (the older queen, workers
and males) will not. This means there is
no need for bumblebees to store food to feed the colony during winter months. The new queens will survive by feeding and building up their
fat reserves ready for hibernation. There are some exceptions in some countries
with warmer climates, such that bumblebees remain active through the winter, but
again, due to the warmer climate, the bees are able to forage and so there is no need for winter stores, which is what honey eaten by humans (made
by honey bees), really is.

"Few insects are more important than bees, wasps, and ants. They maintain
the garden’s biological balance, fertilize vegetables, fruits, and
flowers, and recycle nutrients within the soil. It’s no exaggeration to
say that a garden can’t be understood without an understanding of its
insects."